Game Recap

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.

There isn’t a single aspect of the team game that the Red Sox are doing well right now.

The pitching has been poor. The hitting has been horrendous. The baserunning has been embarrassing. The defense has been indefensible.

That’s a bad combination on a team that was built on pitching and defense.

After a rough road trip, the Mets came back to Citi Field and took care of business as they rolled over the Cubs 6-1.

Jon Neise pitched decently. Though he gave up eight hits and walked three, he managed to strike out seven and make it through 5 2/3 innings.

Fernando Nieve , who relieved Neise in the sixth, ended with the win, as the Mets would all but seal the deal in the seventh inning with a five run rally. Angel Pagan's two-run homer was the spark that got the team rolling.

Like a Nor'easter, they blew in wrecking everything in sight and leaving nothing but rubble in their wake.

Their bats thundered, while their pitchers blew the rawhide by their Boston adversaries as if they were tornadoes twisting the night away.

It was just four games in April, games that perhaps at the end of a 162 game season may not mean a whole lot.

Still, that whooshing sound you heard from Fenway Park was Red Sox Nation's collective gasp, "Ruh-roh."

The Tampa Bay Rays won their seventh in a row by defeating the Boston Red Sox 8-2 on Monday afternoon at Fenway Park. The Red Sox have now lost six of their last seven, which includes this four game sweep by the Rays.

Red Sox starting pitcher John Lackey had his first rough outing in a Boston uniform. He went just 3.1 innings, allowing eight runs, nine hits, and one walk, while throwing a total of 79 pitches. Lackey struck out only one batter, which occurred in the third inning.

You could feel the charge of the Marlins' in the ninth inning of an 8-6 Phillies win on Friday night.

Phillies ace Roy Halladay left the rain-plagued game in the eighth inning with an 8-2 lead.

Reliever David Herndon gave up four runs to make 8-6 before Ryan Madson closed the door, allowing one inherited runner to score.

The Marlins' Ricky Nolasco almost shut out the Phillies the following night, save Jayson Werth's two-out ninth inning solo home run. The Marlins won the second game, 5-1.

He was just the remedy the St. Louis Cardinals needed after the 20-inning marathon loss against the New York Mets on Saturday. 

It wasn’t certain what we’d get from the Cardinals and Mets on Sunday night. After all, they did just finish a 20-inning game the night before.

Of course, the players were going to be tired, relievers overworked from the night before and everyone else pretty much mentally exhausted from six hour and 53 minute marathon.

One big question was going to be about the availability of the relievers on both sides, as 19 Mets pitchers and 16 Cardinals pitchers were used in Saturday night’s game.

Caption: CF Mike Cameron lets Carlos Pena’s line drive get away from him in the first inning of tonight’s second game against Tampa Bay. The error led to four unearned runs in the Red Sox 6-5 loss to the Rays.

Saturday April 17th, 2010 turned out to be a great day of baseball.

After coaching my son's team in their final scrimmage before our season starts on the 19th, (Anthony Cappetta: 2-for-3, with two steals) my son and I sat down at 4pm eastern time, to watch the Mets take on the St. Louis Cardinals.

Despite the fact that the Mets have been a disappointment so far in this young season, even after their own manager proclaimed that the team needed to get off to a fast start, something about yesterday seemed different.

The 20-inning pitchers duel that the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets endured on Saturday was one of the craziest games I have ever seen in my life. And that is no exaggeration.

While I was disappointed, and even mad about the loss directly afterwards—as a fan, I had to appreciate what I had just witnessed.

Thoughts were flying through my mind at a million miles per second. Some entering and exiting my head before I could even try to rationalize them.